Canada a hotbed of piracy?
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 1st 2007 9:35PM
posted May 1st 2007 9:35PM
Canada looks to have found itself on the bad side of Microsoft, Apple, and other members of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), with the group charging that the country isn't doing its part to fight piracy of software, movies and other intellectual property, The Inquirer reports. To that end, the group recently took its demands all the way to the U.S. government, asking for Canada to be moved up to the list of top piracy offenders, which currently includes the likes of China and Russia. The U.S. decided to give Canada a break this time 'round, however, leaving the country in its current second tier position alongside Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, and a number of other countries. Not surprisingly, the IIPA were none to pleased with that decision, saying that Canada's weak enforcement of piracy "continues to cause great damage to legitimate rights holders, both of Canadian and US copyright products."
Thank God for our krazy kanuk neighbors! I love how you guys managed to drive DirectTV nuts.
(1) DirectTV is not allowed to be sold in Canada (I don't know why... but that is besides the point).
(2) Some smart Canadians started selling "blue cards" to Americans via mail. The blue cards allowed Americans to receive DirectTV without a subscription.
(3) DirectTV goes ape s**t and demands that the Canadian blue card vendors be prosecuted for theft of services.
(4) Canadian court rules that since DirectTV can not be had in Canada, owning a blue card can not be illegal.
(5) DirectTV send home to go pound sand.
You're right. Stealing is so great. Thank goodness for the Canadians allowing us to steal from DirectTV. How dare DirectTV pay to put a satellite in orbit to beam programming to customers and then ask those customers to pay for the service.
Penguin, I felt it was important to second you on your statement about Karen.
Nearly all of her comments left me with the same impression as the one you stated above. Karen, your favoritism for your big screen TV over the well being and prosperity of your people is gaddamn repugnant. Fug world so long as you got your crappy gadgets, right? People like you should be excluded from all social benefits our country collective offers. When shjt breaks down (and it will) you can hump your big screen for warmth, shelter and security and your childre can strip it for parts to fund their education. Stop kidding yourself, just go back to Idaho, will you?
Penguin Warlord and anyone else...
Re-read what I wrote. I never said I was a Conservative. Party politics is just as bad as fanboys and anti-fanboys we see on this site all the time. Party Politics fracture the govenment which leads to less being done. Have we met before because some of you have jumped to all sorts of conclusion about me. I did post about the money issues with the liberal because it was the first thing that came to my mind about their mismanagement. I do care about more things then money...the environment, education, healthcare, and every other issue as important including immigration... I do believe Harper's government hasn't done well in a lot of the issues. It takes money to fix problems like education to see people asking for the last government to come back to power when they missmanaged last time frustrates me. We need Leaders not party politics.
I'm sure that the number of online thieves will go down as soon as Canadians have a legit method of getting content online. As soon as the Canadian iTunes Store starts selling TV shows and movies, I'm going on a spending spree.
Avast ye scurvy dogs.
Harper is in power because the liberals became so corrupt that they blatantly stole money, tried to whitewash the books and made their voters look like fools.
You all talk about how much you hate Harper but he seems like a pretty decent fellow. Unlike your previous two PM's that were total ball less monkeys that followed the orders of Maurice Strong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Strong
Ha, and Canada is the cheapest place in the world to get an Ipod too.
When you tell people in Canada that you purchased a cd they will all respond with the same answer why? I dont buy much music but i do buy a lot of games and movies, and from what I can tell the same is true of most people. They buy games, and many people rent movies and burn a copy for themselves which is not entirely piracy. As previously stated cam version of movies are for people who would not have paid to watch the movie in the first place or who have already seen it in theaters and want to watch it again.
wow, yes I'm so happy to have an extra 1 or 2 pennies in my pocket, speaking of socialists which government is working hand in hand with the NDP :O, I hate party hacks that come up with the lamest arguments.......Ok now that I have that off my chest, yeah its pretty sweet to be a Canadian and as for American pressure I think the damage is done, Canada will pretty much remain a hot bed for piracy. Without the recording industry being able to get access to who owns certain IP addresses, they basically can't do anything. And I could be wrong but this is a Charter right ( the right to privacy) which could only be overturned with a notwithstanding vote which are rarely used as they are really unpopular.
Nice backpedaling there. What you "got off your chest" downright contradicts your previous statements. You've made it clear that you'd prefer those pennies to go towards buying you useless tech junk over feeding your own starving people. You basically bitched about *having* to contribute. Your amendment to these claims is laughable. Typical apologetic concervative pattern. FK-U.
@Loonie
DING DING DING!
Where there's pot, there's piracy. It's the gateway drug dontcha know.
Canada, leader of indoor hydroponics.
uh.... it was sarcasm ( I'm horribly unimpressed by the GST cut) and if you've taken a stockpile of my few and very sparse comments on this board and put them all together you've taken them out of context..... and that is sort of stalkerish. Although I don't remember speaking against doing my part, perhaps I was bitching about being so broke. I love my tech toys, I would never deny that. Being a student I get sad that I have no cash for them. But I'm not against doing our part,the first world is behind on helping out third world countries and it will probably bite us in the ass one day...Oh and FK-U too ass hat.I'm equal opportunity I hate hacks on both sides.
Well, I have been saying this all along. In the US, I miss my show on ABC I go online to abc.com and hey there it is. In Canada, I go to abc.com and it says this content is restricted to US users only. I go the lovely site of Canadian channel global and I am able to download the latest episode of Deal Or No Deal...God forbid I miss the climactic season finale of that! Or in Canada I downloaded and iTunes and bought the video IPOD :D...wow what a great way to enjoy my shows but wait a minute I am in Canada all that I can download are lame music videos instead of movies and shows yet again. So my next option given that the supply is not available for my demand I go to the lovely torrent sites and low and behold all of those shows and movies at my fingertips. We in Canada tried and I know many of us here to do it the legal way because to be honest I would rather pay up than wait for my show to download and enjoy it right then and there. Until then, we download away and pirate away because there is no other way...eh!
Re Karen's comments and the bashers.
Some of the comments may have been overly "conservative" but IMO, it's nothing compared to the brain-dead Canadians who continue to vote back in the Liberals.
Politically, I've always been a little right of centre so do not like the loony left (NDP or worse) or the rabid right (ultra conservative). The Liberals are just opportunists who ride the fence and say whatever will get them re-elected. (*** I agree with some/many social programs (ie, universal health care, social assistance, etc,) but against universal day care, so I'm not a "hard hearted capitalist")
Before the mindless Conservative bashing, remember back to the Trudeau years up to today...
- the Liberals (Trudeau), the "Father" of deficit spending and debt while buying gullible, stupid Canadians off with their own money
- lied to continuously (remember "wage & price" controls and Trudeau's outright lie not to impose; gas tax increase (Clarke Conservatives lost non-confidence vote only to have the Libs, once in, raise it even higher)
- tricked and lied to Canadians re abolishing the death penalty. Got rid of the death penalty but promised "life means life" only to sneak in the faint hope clause (Warren Allmand) that release "lifers" well before the end of that so-called life sentence... which leads to
- the namby-pamby judicial system that's a joke filled with "liberal"-leaning judges (making the Liberals hypocrites for dissing Harper's plan to choose judges... ie, at least has input of law enforcement, not strictly party patronage)
- farce of an immigration system (too many illegals (also gone missing) while legitimates have trouble... many immigrants tend to vote Liberal... hmmm)
- joke of a military due to Liberal mis-management, incompetence and homicidal negligence (ie, dangerous, outdated equipment (deadly Sea Kings)) compounded by Chretien's political cancellation of much needed new helicopters costing taxpayers hundreds of millions (into the billions?) of penalty dollars for canceled contracts
- sponsorship scandal amongst decades of other billion dollar Liberal boondoggles and scandals
So yes, the Conservatives can be criticized for many things but to say the Liberals are better after decades (lots of practice) of sleaze and incompetence is totally specious, disingenuous and delusional.
But a majority of Canadians like to be babied and conned with their own money so expect to see the Liberals (the historical disaster they are) soon back in power.
Supposedly, we learn from our mistakes (not Canadians) and those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it (definitely Canadians).
Heaven help Canada when the Liberals get back in.
...
I can't speak to the RIAA part of it, but if the MPAA has such a problem with Canada's behavior, why don't they stop producing every 3rd film there and pumping millions of dollars into their economy?
Apparently they aren't THAT offended by the Canadian behavior.
Harper and Mark Steyn are the only good things to come out of Canada in the last 30 years. Just because you're a bunch of pussies that don't have an army and love socialism doesn't give you the right to steal American copyrighted material. Now quit you're whining and stop coming down here if you don't like being America's "bitch". Sheez, you can't even stop using American urban vernacular. I can't turn around down here without running into some half-witted canuck trying to escape the cold.
@tdetmer
We don't want to come, "down there". That's the whole point. If Harper was PM when the current Iraq debacle commenced, we would currently be knee deep in your problems.
Sure you don't want to come down here. ;-) I'll bet you're probably posting from the US right now.
As for not wanting to be in "our mess", of course you don't. That's par for the course. Let America handle all of the security issues while you sit around and reap the benefits. Works for Europe and Canada. America is a sucker for being in NATO.
(thinking to myself, up here in Canada) "Sit on the hands before replying, sit on the hands".
"Let America handle all of the security issues while you sit around and reap the benefits."
Don't go there.
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Blame Canada, Blame Canada
I am the first person to say that the MPAA and RIAA go nuts
But it is true that a gigantic percentage of pirated discs come in through Canada, specifically Vancouver, partially because of laxer Canadian laws.
@tdetmer
Your country needs to cut back on guns or crazy people. I'm thinking guns would be easier.
Anyone ever hear that Harvard and Columbia have a big rivalry going on?
Neither did Harvard.
Canada is a wart on our collective ass. Without us they would either be completely different or would not exist. To crow about how wonderful Canada is re: the US is EXACTLY like crowing about how wonderful some leafy green suburb is compared to the city it's SUB to.
It's people like you that gives Americans a bad rap.
Comparing Canada to a suburb, are you Bill O'Reilly by any chance? (not a compliment). This is the kind of thinking that causes America to be ranked near the bottom of the list with North Korea while Canada is in the top five. Oh wait you haven't heard of this list, well it's a ranking of people's impressions of other countries. Canada is top 5 while the states is in the bottom 5. how surprising.
And I can't believe that you just bashed Pierre Trudeau. What a cheap shot. He was the most beloved PM and you go and bash him but guess what he introduced that you are taking for granted right now? A little something called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To our American brethren who don't know what this is, (I still you call brethren besides some of the nonsensical name calling) the Charter is like your Bill of Rights except that ours cannot be changed by a quick vote in parliament. To change the charter you have to have a vote where atleast 7 provinces representing 50% of the population agree to the change. This is why we don't have any "Homeland Security" crap and our freedoms are protected. So before you go bashing Trudeau why don't you think about that for a second. Even if everything you said was true then he was still worth it just for that contribution.
Well the EU is passing a law stating it's OK to pirate ANYTHING for PERSONAL NON-PROFIT use. 3 cheers for the EU! \o/
@Zeke
Chretien was good. He spent a lot of time forming relationships with countries like China. Of course, Harper ruined years of his work in about 5 minutes. But ya, Martin was useless.
Canada is the world's most boring country. It is full of shemales and ugly women. If they steal our property we can take out their entire Navy with a couple of bass fishing boats. A couple M1 tanks and a few Apaches in Ottawa and we'd own that pathetic patch of ice called Can-a-duh!
Quote: "Canada is the world's most boring country. It is full of shemales and ugly women. If they steal our property we can take out their entire Navy with a couple of bass fishing boats. A couple M1 tanks and a few Apaches in Ottawa and we'd own that pathetic patch of ice called Can-a-duh!"
Wtf?!? Was this supposed to be funny?
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I don't believe that having lax laws changes much. If I person wants to pirate, or doesn't have the money not to then they will...not matter how many laws there are surrounding such an action.
Hmm... can you think of any reasons for us to be unpopular that have to do with something other than actual merit? Ever heard of 'hegemony'? do you like it? I wouldn't think you would. I don't think anyone does, including a lot of people in the US. But it's the reality of the world. We're big, we're rich, we're innovative. We lead. Speaking as a Tennesseean, I think I know how you feel about it - the US is to the world as California is to the US, and it drives me nuts. I don't want to be led by California. But I am. They're big, they're rich, they're innovative.
And Canada most certainly IS like a suburb. Do you really not see it? Bless your heart.
Blame Canada! ;)
cry babies.